Auguring the future. Nicholas Bevan concludes his analysis of Thompstone
Severely injured claimants may not be receiving appropriate legal and financial advice on the alternative compensatory options available to address their future losses. The financial implications flowing from the lump sum/periodical payments dilemma can be profound. Where legal and financial advisers fail to give due consideration to these factors, they will expose themselves to the risk of professional negligence claims.
Low interest in periodical payments
Master Denzil Lush recently observed, in the preface to Future Loss in Practice: Periodical Payments and Lump Sums, that in two-thirds of damages cases submitted to the Court of Protection the claimants' legal advisers had failed to commission a financial adviser's report. That is an alarming statistic because it seems reasonable to assume that many personal injury practitioners are ill-equipped to provide the detailed financial advice and comparative analysis necessary to enable a claimant to make an informed decision.
The shortcomings of the lump sum award were touched upon in the first article in this series (see “Future proof?(1)”,
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